I am excited to share some travel photos from a recent trip to New Mexico. I love planning trips that combine all of my passions. This long weekend consisted of an Ayurveda cooking workshop with Dr. Lad at the Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque, accommodations at a very cool ranch, healthy & yummy food, and a really nice hike through Tent Rocks. My friend and travel partner also made some time for a trip to the Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams museum in Santa Fe.

You may have noticed that this winter has been a particularly rough one. My personal strategy for making the most of it is keeping busy with work and entertaining myself by attending some yoga workshops and playing with new recipes. I am feeling very grateful to have Kyle around while the weather is nasty today. This week, I made a couple of new recipes that we loved. And, not only did we enjoy them, but I also convinced my neighbor from England to sample my cooking 🙂

Last week Kyle and I visited Blue Hill Farm in Westchester, NY. I highly recommend a visit to this beautiful place. We enjoyed a self-guided tour of the farm and visit to the cafe before an incredible dining experience at their restaurant. I can only imagine how cool this place must be during the summer growing season. Essentially, we drove about six hours in one day just to got out to dinner and Kyle kept reminding me of this. Lucky for me, it was well worth it! I’ve dragged Kyle to distant foodie destinations in the past and it hasn’t always worked out so well. But, I had really built this spot up and we were both overly impressed.

Last week I had the incredible opportunity to visit the California College of Ayurveda for a week long intensive. I’ve been studying through a distance learning program at CCA since last December and in two weeks I will have completed my Ayurvedic Health Educator Certification.

For the ten years that we’ve lived in Newport, I’ve never had the opportunity to visit Swiss Village Foundation, a 5 minute drive from our home. This all changed for me in 2013. This private property is only open to the public for one day in June each year. In May, I was able to attend a lecture by Philip Ackerman-Leist highlighting his book, Rebuilding the Foodshed. In June, I finally made it to the SVF tour open to the public. And, this past week, I visited SVF twice! First, on Tuesday as a guest of my friend Charlotte, who is a member of the Barrington Garden Club. This was a very cool experience, I tagged along with garden club for lunch at Sweet Berry Farm followed by a private tour of SVF. Crazy, but true, I found myself at SVF the next evening for another lecture, this time it was chef/owner Jake Rojas of Tallulah on Thames and Pat McNiff of Pat’s Pastured (in case you need a Thanksgiving Day Turkey!) speaking about local food and farms.

To learn about SVF, it’s history, and their work to save heritage breed animals, check out their website, Swiss Village Foundation. I’m planning on attending more talks from their lecture series and I’m also looking forward to swinging by to purchase some eggs, beef, and pork from their acorn-fed pigs 🙂